Single Circumstances
by Nashidesei
Summary: A collection of my Jakfic oneshots. Most are selfcontained, but on occaison light references will be made between a oneshot and some of my larger inprogress fics. Most of these will be challenges reposted from my arts LJ. Various pairings, genres, etc.
1. Look At Me

**Rating: **K+  
**Pairing:** Irreconcilable Jak/Keira  
**Warnings:** Anti-pairing writing, unbeta'd.  
**Word Count:** 645  
**For:** Anti-Pairing Challenge on jakfanfics

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**Look At Me**

Sometimes, when I listen to her talk, it's like water. Her voice is calming and soothing and a promise that there are some things that are still clean, some things that he, or I, or they haven't completely screwed up. Just like before, when I would lay out on the beach and listen to the ocean roll in and down and let it carry me to sleep. Sometimes that's her voice, to me.

Other times, though—all the time these days—there's a cold sting to her voice that I don't think she wants me to hear. A chill that I recognize from the days when she was just a voice behind curtain, a faceless employer that couldn't care less who I was or how willing I was to help, a sting that hurts more than a bullet wound or scalpel scraping on bone or needles driven deep into my chest and screaming through my body.

Sometimes, when I listen to her talk, it's like ice.

_"And **you're** a good judge of character! HA! Look at you!"_

Yeah, look at me. Look at my scars and the way I shiver when someone tries to touch me, how I shake and want to scream whenever that damned alarm goes off because it sounds so much—too much—like the warning that would sound back in the prison just before the shower was turned on and soaked me through until I burned and thrashed and screamed and _wasn't me anymore_.

Or look at me now, gun in my hand and blowing away anything and everything in my way, throwing people to the ground because I need a transport faster than my feet, I need to get away before someone notices what I've done, before I realize there was no reason to do it. Before Daxter has time to explain that the blood on my hands is going to turn sticky soon and I'd better find somewhere to wash. Before I have time to stop and think and realize that there was no reason for him to die, not like this, and hate myself for killing him.

Or look at me now, all fangs and claws and eyes darker than seems natural—darker than is natural—howling and hurting and killing like a creature from an old fireside story. Look at me, with skin so pale I might be dead—I _should_ be dead—and hands that destroy whatever they touch, breath that tastes like dark and blood that smells thick and heavy and so very, very wrong.

Look at me.

Sometimes her voice is like ice, and I can't really blame her. Sometimes I want to grab her and shake her, hard, scream at her that the man she so idolized is the one that did this to me, that it's memories of him that have me sitting bolt upright in the middle of the night keening and sweating and trying so hard just to breathe.

But I know, deep down, that no matter what I do she won't listen. She'll play nice, sit pretty and demure and pretend that everything's okay, but I've felt the way her body tenses when I touch her and heard of how she showers for too long after I've held her, how she can smell the dark in me on her skin after I've been near her for more than a minute, how it makes her choke when I breathe.

And I know that there's nothing either of us can do. We can't stop pretending because we both need this more than anything, we both need to at least try to make things how they used to be, become who we once were. But we should never have started because of what I am, what they made me, what I've done.

We never should have started because, well, _look at me_.

**End**

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	2. It's Not You

**Rating:** T  
**Pairing:** Jak/Ashelin, Torn/Ashelin  
**Warnings:** Mildly anti-pairing, unbeta'd.  
**Word Count:** 786  
**For:** Anti-Pairing Challenge on jakfanfics.

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**It's Not You**

"I said I was sorry, okay!" He hollered, eyes narrowed. "I can't figure what else you want from me."

Ashelin held a hand to her head, elbow leaned on the table between them. She really wished this were happening somewhere else—her apartment, Jak's house in Spargus—anywhere but in plain sight at the Naughty Ottsel. Anywhere but here.

"It's not what I want from you, Jak," she sighed, letting both hands rest on the table, running a finger over the rim of her glass. "It's just…Look, it's not you, it's me, okay?"

"Oh _shit_ no," Jak replied, leaning forward. "I am _not_ getting hit by that line." He reached over and put a hand on hers, halting its motions over the half-empty glass. He hadn't ordered anything, leaving her glass the only object on the table aside from their hands and his goggles, removed when he complained of a headache.

He never ordered anything, actually. Ashelin wished she could blame it on the fact that this place was run by a couple of fuzzy little rat creatures, but she had only ever seen him eat three times since she met him, and all of those had been before the final assault on the Nest. She wasn't sure he ate at all.

"So what's the big deal?" he asked, voice even. He knew what was coming.

She took a breath. "You remind me of my father."

He arched one eyebrow. "Like hell."

"No, not as in you're like him at all—you aren't, I promise." She ran a hand over her braids, sighed, shook her head, closed her eyes. "It's that you make me think of him. The way you move, the way water flashes when you touch it, even the way you smell…it's all too familiar. When I look at you I see _you_ and nothing else, but if I listen or breathe or just watch instead of really looking I see my father's legacy. The damage he left."

He was silent for a long moment. "So…I disgust you. Just like Keira."

"That's not it and you know it," she snapped, eyes narrowing.

The youth folded his arms over his chest and cocked his head to one side. "Then what is it?"

"I-I…" she swallowed. "I can't explain it without sounding like an asshole."

"Ashe, just pretend I'm dense and won't notice the assholedness of whatever you say." He smirked and leaned forward slightly. "It shouldn't be that big a stretch, I'm not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer."

She chuckled. "All right, fine. But you have to promise not to hit me."

"Promise."

"When I look at you I want to fix you. I want to take care of you, to undo everything my father and Erol did. To pick at your wounds until they bleed again so _I_ can be the one to heal them. I feel like I owe it to you for what my father did."

He blinked. She held her breath.

Jak started laughing. "You're kidding me, right? That's all?"

She glared, rising from her seat and slamming both hands on the table. "It's not _all_, Jak! How can we be—how—" She ground her teeth. "Look, I can't sleep with you if I just want to be your shrink!"

"No shit," he chuckled, shaking his head. "Oh Ashe, this is _rich_, really. Makes me wish you weren't so totally Torn's."

"That's the thing, I can't—" She broke off. "What?"

He stood, leaned forward and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. "It won't work. You just want to fix me, coddle me, and I'm a bit beyond fixing and there's no way in hell I'm going to be coddled. Go play with Torn—he's more your type anyway."

"You mean you aren't mad?"

"Should I be?"

Ashelin stared. Jak understood exactly what was happening between them, it was Ashelin that had blown it completely out of proportion. She felt a bit of a flush come to her cheeks and straightened, fiddling with her hair. "Then…that's it?"

"Sorry Ashe, you've been dumped." He picked at his fingernails, leaning back in his seat again, propping his feet up on the table. "Quick, go grab Torn while you're both still on the rebound."

She sighed, smiling, and shook her head. "Someday you're gonna make someone really happy, you know that?"

"That's what they keep telling me!" He replied with a shrug.

She reached out, brushed her fingers over his cheek and headed off.

Jak reached across the table, picked up her glass and finished off her drink. Once she was out the door he called out. "Hey, Dax, I just got dumped—do I get a free drink?"

**End**

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	3. Variations in Tone

**Rating: **K+  
**Pairing:** Seem/Torn (but not really), mention of (one-sided) Seem/Jak and Torn/Ashelin  
**Warnings:** Non-pairing-pairing, spoilers for Jak 3, unbeta'd.  
**Word Count:** 1,415  
**For:** Anti-Pairing Challenge on jakfanfics  
**Notes:** Heart of Mar canon.

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**Variations in Tone**

It was over. Errol was dead, the Dark Maker ship had been destroyed, the Precursors had departed, and Jak had stayed behind. Daxter and his eco-balanced friend were currently out and about delivering invitations to some sort of get-together at the ottsel's bar. Well, Daxter was delivering invitations, Jak was simply carrying him where he needed to go.

Expecting a visit herself from the Precursor and hero, Seem was not surprised when a light tap sounded from the door to her chambers. She _was_ surprised, however, to discover who it was standing on the other side of that door.

"Sorry," the brunet said, his voice the gruff rasp of breath over sand, "I was hoping this room was empty." He turned to leave.

Seem's brow furrowed. "Commander…Torn, was it?"

He paused, glancing back over his shoulder. "Yeah?"

"Would you mind explaining why you are searching for an empty room in my temple?"

"To keep Jak's stupid rat off my case about coming to his party," he replied without hesitation, coming about and folding his slim arms over his chest. The man shook his head. "He can't seem to get the message that I don't do parties."

The monk looked him up and down, took stock of the exhaustion ringing his eyes and unhealthy pallor of his skin, and took a step back. "You may…hide…in here, if you do not mind a little company."

He stared at her for a long moment, mused on why her facial structure looked familiar, and gave a half-grin in gratitude. "Thanks." He stepped in, and she closed the door behind him.

"I was in the middle of my evening prayers; would you mind if I continued?"

The soldier waved a hand. "By all means."

Something about his voice struck an odd chord in Seem's thoughts, and even with a shake of her head and a determination to finish her nightly rites she could not banish the sensation. Something about the gravelly timbre, variations in tone, made her mind race—she recognized those qualities from somewhere, some teaching from her healer's days.

The young woman knelt down before the small copper idol set into the wall and started the hand gestures and quiet chants in the Precursor tongue over again, pausing when Torn cleared his throat. She glanced back at him—had she given permission for him to sit on her bed?—and raised one eyebrow. "Is there something you would like to say?"

"You're Onin's granddaughter, aren't you?"

She jerked. He was certainly direct, that much was certain, but he lacked any form of tact. She pitied soldiers their stunted emotional development. "I am."

He nodded and lowered his eyes. "She never did explain why she threw you out."

"Are you determined to bring up memories I never had any intention of reliving, Commander?" Her voice was a quiet hiss, just as low and intimidating as anything he had ever said. "If that was your intention in coming here, then I must ask you to leave."

"No, that's not it. It's just…" He bit his bottom lip. "Look, I'd been in the Guard for almost three years when the order came to fly you out. I almost didn't take it, when I found out how old you were."

"That was the better part of a decade ago." She turned back to the idol. "Any guilt you have over transporting me should be banished by now."

He sighed. "I just wanted to know wh—"

"Onin banished me in accordance with a vision," she snapped. "I was meant to join the Golden Order to assist a great hero in vanquishing a great darkness. I doubted her vision, but followed my teachings anyway. I did my part, and now Mar and Orange Lightning have done theirs. My role in this is over." Her fingers met in one final gesture and she whispered two faint syllables twice before turning around on her cushion to face the former Krimzon Guard. "That is what you came here to learn, correct?"

"Hey, don't accuse me of having some ulterior motive, girl. I came here to get the hell away from Daxter and his jabbering, that's all. I just happened to recognize an opportunity to clear my head." His voice was no louder than it had been before, but sounded strained, as though he was holding back a shout—or, perhaps, attempting to force it out.

Seem suddenly understood why his tone sounded so familiar, and her eyes narrowed slightly in thought. "I am not accusing you of anything, Commander. However, I have a question of my own to ask you, in recompense for your determination to question me."

His features settled once more, angry lines fading from around his mouth, and he sat back. "Shoot."

"When was your throat cut?"

His blue eyes widened and the little color he had drained from his face. "How—"

"You've had corrective surgery on the scar, I assume, but it is obvious there was little that could be done for your voice. How long as it been?"

He sat there, breath short, and stared for several seconds. His hands worked in and out of fists, clutching at his knees and releasing. "I…" He shook his head slowly. "Six years. How did you—"

"I had dealt with many such patients, Commander, and recognize the aftereffects of such a wound." She rose to her diminutive height—eye to eye with the older man where he sat—and folded her hands behind her back. "How did it happen?"

He shook his head, lips tightening as anger kindled once more in his tired eyes. "You have no right to ask."

"And you had no right to inquire as to the reason for my banishment." She gave a faint shrug. "You did, however, and I answered. It is only fair you balance my uncomfortability with your own."

"Spiteful little thing, aren't you?"

"I have my reasons. Now, how did it happen?"

"Do you know why I really came here?"

"I am asking a question, Commander." Her scarlet eyes, half-lidded, darkened with the faintest shadow of annoyance.

"Not to hide from Daxter, even though he can be an annoying little bastard." He folded his arms again, standing up and looming over her. Seem kept her head tilted downward, glaring up through white eyelashes. "I'm hiding for the same reason you are. I don't want to see Ashelin any more than you want to see Jak."

She ground her teeth. "I fail to see what Mar has to do with my question."

"And I 'fail to see' why no one else has noticed the looks you keep giving him."

"I am grateful for his heroism in defeating Errol and the Dark Makers."

"Most people aren't grateful enough to stare."

"I stare at the Precursor he carries. It is more than a little overwhelming to understand that I have been in the company of one of my creators for a fair amount of time without showing him the proper respect."

Torn took a half-step forward, leaning so his shadow cast over the young woman's features. "You stare because you don't know what to tell him. You stare because you want to know why he looks at Ashelin like that when she did nothing to keep him from being banished, because you never forced him into helping you or coerced him into doing what you wanted. You stare because—"

"If I said I hated you for being the man to pilot my banishment transport would you be quiet?" She spat, hands clenched into fists at her sides. "That's what you would like to hear, isn't it? You would like another reason to explain why the Baroness would rather have Mar than you now that all is said and done? Some proof that he's better than you, so that you can sleep at night and stop thinking of the way she touches his face and how she used to do that to you—"

Torn hit her. Bare hand on the side of her face, hard enough to jerk her head to the side but not to send her reeling. Her cheek stung as she turned back, lifting her hand and hitting him just as hard. They glared each other down for a long moment.

"Are you going to do anything about it?" He ground out at last.

"Are you?" She retorted.

They both knew the answer, hard as it was to accept, but neither spoke it aloud.

**End**

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	4. That's Allowed

**Rating: **T  
**Pairing:** Jak/Daxter  
**Warnings:** Uh...Mention of torture and death? Swearing...Oh, and m/m affections. Duh.  
**Word Count: **1701 (yes, and _one_)  
**For:** Valentine's Day Challenge on jakfanfics. Yeah, this is that old.

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**That's Allowed**

You know, I honestly think that if I hadn't known him since I was, like, four, I'd hate the guy. He's bitter, he's homicidal, and he has some _serious_ anger issues. And yeah, he wasn't always like this, but I know he's always had the potential. By the time he was seventeen he'd killed more Lurkers than I have hairs on my head—and trust me, that's a lot—and at least two actual people. It's been two years since then, and now the number's a lot higher on the second end and about the same on the first.

That's right, he doesn't kill Lurkers anymore. As much as I hate the toothy things, I can sorta understand why there are people out to get them free. I don't even wanna think about the sorta stuff Praxis makes those guys do.

But I'm not talking about Lurkers, I'm talking about Jak. If I hadn't known him forever, I think I'd hate him. At the very least I'd be a lot more pissed at him right now than I am. Again, I can understand why he agreed to go on the mission tomorrow, but when _Torn_ says something's suicide, I'd really rather head the other direction—clearly whatever old sanded-lungs is talking about is something I shouldn't have to worry about.

Tomorrow we're gonna go get our asses handed to us by the Krimzon Guard, and I can already tell you how much that's gonna suck. We have to save Samos, I get that. We should probably save that little kid—whatever the hell his name is—and the old guy that takes care of him.

Only problem is, they're in the most heavily-guarded place in Haven. I've been in there plenty enough times to know it sucks—it's probably not the smartest thing in the world to send someone as unstable as Jak back to the place that turned him into what the general public calls an "Eco Freak." I know he's gonna end up Dark tomorrow, and I'm not looking forward to that.

I hate seeing that thing Jak turns into. Not because it's a ruthless monster, not because for those few minutes when his emotions run too high Jak suddenly loves the feeling of blood on his skin, not any of the reasons other folks are scared of him. I hate seeing it because I know that the monster is Jak, that it always has been, and there's nothing I can do to change it. Nothing. _That's_ what I hate about seeing him like that. There's nothing I can do to tell Jak I don't care, nothing but stay holding on to his shoulderplate and not say a word until he's done, until those horns melt back into his skull and his eyes change from black back to blue. Nothing but stay.

That's why I should hate him, because I _have_ to stay, I have to protect him from himself, and he's going to go get us both killed tomorrow.

But, dammit, I can't hate him. I'm pissed, yeah, but there's no way in hell I hate the guy. Even if he sounds like a fucking crashed zoomer when he snores, and he's snoring _right now_.

Bastard. How can he be asleep when we're gonna go die tomorrow? I don't think I'll ever understand how he can always be so calm about this crap. It's a normal thing for him to almost get killed nowadays—if I didn't know better I'd think he was trying to get killed. But he's still alive, so I know he's not. He just knows he's packing more heat than the entire Krimzon guard put together, even if he can't really control it.

He stopped snoring. Now he's moving around in his sleep, which is almost worse because, let's face it, I'm kinda small and he's kinda…not. If he rolls over in the wrong direction I could end up an ottsel pancake, at least until he moves again, or until I can scratch him up enough to wake him up. I hate doing that.

"…No."

That's the alert. Jak talks plenty now so the word itself isn't a big deal, but when he talks in his sleep you know something's wrong. I sigh and sit up, crawling up to sit on his chest, waiting for him to make another sound.

It's only when he's asleep that that stupid scowl finally fades away and I can see the old Jak in his face, but right now I don't want to see it. He doesn't look calm, like he should while he's sleeping, he looks hurt. In pain.

"Jak. Jak, c'mon. Wake up." I put a paw on either side of his face, but he shakes his head to force me off. I grind my teeth and scoot a little closer, feet against his neck. "Jak!"

"I-I didn't…I don't—"

"_Jak_!"

His eyes snap open, and I try to convince myself that they weren't black for just a minute. They were blue, they've always been blue. There's no black there.

He stares straight ahead for a minute. "D-Don't hate me, okay? I didn't mean it. I swear I didn't."

"I don't hate you." I know what he needs to hear, and I'll tell it to him. Because I don't hate him, I never could. He's Jak. We've always been together, we'll always _be_ together. Because, honestly, I love the guy.

There. I said it. You got a problem?

"I don't hate you, Jak," I repeat. "I could never hate you. Ever."

He blinks, and that terrified look finally goes away. Jak's back in his head again, and probably doesn't even remember what just happened. "I—" He tilts his head to look at me. "Dax?"

"Yeah?"

"Could you move? I can't breathe."

I hadn't realized I'd scooted so far forward—my feet, instead of barely touching his neck, are both pressed against it hard, full lengths of orange fur again tan skin. I move back, but don't get off him. I think my tail's twitching a bit. "Sorry."

He sits up and I end up on his lap. This happens a lot, in case you couldn't tell by the fact that he doesn't care that I just _fell _onto his legs. Jak shrugs, his way of saying it's okay that I nearly strangled him with my _feet_, and then gets that look on his face. That "I'm going to tell you nothing's wrong but there's still things in my head so scary I wouldn't mind putting the scatter gun in my mouth to shoot out the creepy" look. Jak has that look down.

"What's the matter?"

He sighs through his teeth. "Nothing. I'm fine."

See? Told you he'd say nothing was wrong.

"Like hell. I know that look on your face, Jak." He's not looking at me. I hate that. "Hello? Earth to Jak! Daxter, best friend, calling Jak, space-case!"

He chuckles a little at that, and I feel better. If the scary things in his head aren't bad enough to keep him from chuckling then things are good. "Sorry, Dax. I just…" He shakes his head. "Bad dream. That's all."

I knew that, and he knows I do. Nothing else ever has him make a sound while he's sleeping. "Gol?"

"No."

"Keira?"

"No."

I sigh. That means he must have been dreaming about… "Prison?"

His silence is answer enough. "Jak, you're outta there. They're not gonna get you again."

"We're going in the morning," he says. "It won't be hard for them to throw me back in my room if I'm already in the building, you know."

"Jak."

He nods, running a hand through his hair. "I know, I know. I just…" He sighed and closes his eyes. "I had a cellmate, you know."

This is news.

"It was only for a little while. He was getting different treatments than I was, taking them differently…he went crazy, Dax. Tried to kill me."

I can see where this is going, and can't help but whisper, "Oh _hell_."

"I-I fought back. I had to. He was going to kill me." He stopped messing with his hair. "I killed him, Dax. With my bare hands. I hated myself after that. Hated everything that they'd done to me, hated Praxis and Erol. Hated everything." He gives a sigh and shakes his head. "I keep thinking everything must have hated me back, to make me go through what I did in there."

I'm quiet for a minute. "I don't hate you."

"I know, but what if I—"

"Jak." He looks at me, finally. I reach out and put a paw on his hand and look straight at him, doing everything I can to drive my point home. "I. Don't. Hate. You. I never will."

He looks down at my paw and, just barely, smiles. "I know." He lays back down, rolling onto his side to oust me from my seat on his lap. Damn it sucks being tiny. I curl up beside him, in the crook of his arm.

"But…" I open my eyes and my ears automatically perk up at the sound while I listen. "But I still get scared, sometimes. That's allowed, right?"

I can't help but smile, but it's not the right kind of smile. Not the kind that can make Jak smile even when we're trapped in the middle of laser-filled hell, not the kind that made him grin back when we were kids and he lost his pet frog within an hour of finding—adopting, and naming—the stupid thing.

"Yeah, Jak. That's allowed."

He gives a sigh, and I could swear he sounds relieved. Like, unless I said it was okay he wouldn't ever let himself be scared. He settles back in and closes his eyes, and after a while his breathing goes even again.

"Hey, Jak?"

A very slight grunt is his only reply. I sit up and turn around to face him properly, placing both front paws against his arm to support myself while I lean forward.

"I love you."

He smiles, and murmurs something I can barely understand.

"That's allowed too, Dax."


	5. Sandpaper and Metal Shavings

**Rating: **T  
**Pairing:** Lightly implied Jak/Torn  
**Warnings:** Swearing, mild m/m affections, anti-Keira opinions (no bashing, though), unbeta'd.  
**Word Count: **1701 (yes, and _one_)  
**For:** Valentine's Day Challenge on jakfanfics.  
**Notes:** Heart of Mar canon.

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**Sandpaper and Metal Shavings**

It was always like this. A mess of anger and confusion, of coercion and death. That was just how it was, how it had always been. Both hoped that someday it might not be like this anymore, that the "new day" everyone claimed would come would finally arrive, and they might not have to run along dirt roads and tumble over what had once been stone streets but now served only as a mess to trip over when they were running for their lives.

They both found it oddly ironic that they were supposed to be doing this not for themselves, but for the people of the world at large, and yet they always ended up running, not for the lives of those they were supposed to protect, but for their own. Running to protect themselves, to stay alive just one more day. Not for any great cause, not when they were in flight, but to _live_. Just one more day.

The door hissed as it opened, hydraulics sliding into motion, and grey blue eyes darted to the opening. "You're late," he hissed, voice rough and low, a whisper over sandpaper.

The blond sighed as he rubbed at the back of his neck. "There were more than you said," he replied, coming around and sitting on the table. "You need better informants."

"You need to stop complaining when there are a couple more Krimzon Guards than I'd figured." He pushed at the younger man, shoving him off the table, and looked down at the map once more, plotting a course…somewhere. The younger man didn't move.

With a sigh that sounded quite like a hiss the tattooed man turned around. "All right, what do you want?"

The blond shook his head, bright blue eyes widening slightly. "Nothing."

"Then why are you still here?" Grey eyes darted to the warrior's shoulder and narrowed. "Where's the rat?"

"He's with Tess; taking lunch to Keira." He shrugged. "Said I didn't have to come if I didn't want to, and I _really_ didn't want to."

A moment passed in silence.

"What did Keira say to you?"

Blue eyes flashed black. "Nothing."

"Why do I not believe you?"

"Because you, Torn, are a complete asshole who doesn't understand when to mind his own damn business."

Torn smirked. "Touchy. So what did she say?"

"Nothing."

"Jak."

That was all it took—all it ever took. Torn was very capable in persuasion, but with Jak his skills were rarely necessary. The kid _wanted_ to talk, but was so wrapped up in keeping his ruthless image that he almost never did. In fact, there were only three people in the world that he ever opened up to: Daxter, Keira, and—on either a good day or a very bad day—Torn.

_Two now, I guess,_ Torn thought, brow furrowing as he waited. _The mechanic is definitely off the list._

Jak sighed and raked a hand through his messy hair. "She…didn't say anything. Not really. When we finally met again, after two years—two _years_, Torn—she didn't say much. She said I was different."

Torn shrugged. "It's been a tough ride for you. I'm sure she could see that."

"That's what I told her," he said softly, eyes downcast. "Almost exactly, actually. But then, before the second race…" He ground his teeth, and for and instant they were sharp. "She said that when I fight, when I'm angry, I…change."

"Well, you do." Torn had only seen the monster that Jak became twice since the young man joined the underground, but even once would have been enough. Jak definitely changed when he was angry, and that was one reason they needed him so much. Someone with that kind of power—be it a gift or a curse—was indispensable against the Baron.

Jak shook his head, frustrated, and curled both hands into fists, raising them as though in preparation for a fight. "That's not the problem!" He raised his voice and Torn's eyes widened a little. Jak almost never spoke over the former Krimzon Guard's own level of speech. Whatever had happened definitely upset him. "That's not…" He shook his head and let his hands drop to his sides.

Torn waited, but Jak didn't speak again. "Well," he asked, sandpaper voice low and almost coaxing, "what _is_ the problem?"

Another moment passed as Jak averted his eyes, face twisting up in a mingling of anger and pain. "She doesn't know me, Torn. The girl I used to love, the girl who kept me going through everything, the only person I missed as much as Dax while I was in prison, _doesn't know me_." He clenched his eyes shut. "I _loved_ her. I saved the world for her. I was even thinking about asking her to fucking _marry_ me!" He lifted his hands, curling them inward slightly as though expecting to see claws where his nails should have been. "And she doesn't know me. She doesn't even _want_ to know me."

"Why does it matter?"

Jak lifted his head, eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Why does it matter?" the rebel repeated. "The girl's cute, I'll admit, but she's got a voice like metal shavings and a personality to match."

Jak blinked once, a movement Torn had taken to interpret as confusion.

Torn ran a hand over his red-brown hair, trying to find a way to explain it. "She's all shine and sparkle and smoothness when you reach out from one angle, but if you reach out from another you'll get sliced." He kept his eyes averted, gaze distant as he turned around and leaned back against the table, folding his arms. "You're stuck at the wrong angle for her, Jak. Once you're here there's no way to turn around again; if she really loved you she'd understand that."

The girl was decent, Torn had to admit, but he had issues when someone hurt one of his people. There weren't many left, not anymore, and aside from the founders of the resistance—himself, the Shadow, Ashelin and Vin—Jak had been in the resistance longest. Everyone else was long gone, either by death or by fear. Keira was great with machines and Torn was glad to have her on their side—Mar knew they needed help with their machines—but if she kept hurting Jak…

The blond stared for a long moment. "Torn, did you actually just say that?"

He turned back to face the younger man. "I don't want you brooding on her for too long—we need your head here, helping us. We're saving the city, remember?"

"All we ever seem to be doing lately is trying to cover our asses, if you don't mind my saying." Jak folded his arms, arching one eyebrow, and Torn gave an internal sigh of relief. That was the Jak he knew, well over the teen-angst phase of his life and too cocky for his own good. That arrogance was good for the underground, though; intimidation was the best way to get through next to a head-on attack.

"Well that's a big part of things," he replied, coming up on the smaller man's side and placing a hand on his shoulder. "If we can't even save ourselves how can we hope to save Haven?"

Jak nodded. "In other words, you need me to keep from getting wrapped up in myself so I can stay alive long enough to kill some more people for the sake of the city?"

"Like I said," he patted his shoulder and stepped past him, headed toward the door, "we need you." He gave a half-grin. "_I_ need you, Jak. If nothing else, remember that."

The door slid open, and Torn headed up the stairs.

Jak thought for a moment, then gave a nod and hurried after the older man. Because, like it or not, he needed the resistance as well, if only to keep him sane. And, most of all, he needed Torn.

He came even with the tattooed man and smirked. "So, what's next?"

They came through the second door into open air and Torn smiled back. "Stay alive, blow stuff up. That's about all you need to know, right?"

Jak nodded. Between sandpaper and metal shavings, he had to admit he liked the one that was always rough, always dangerous, to the one that pretended to be nice and shiny half the time and bit like a knife the rest. Between the resistance and his failed attempt at regaining his old life, between Keira and Torn, Jak made his choice.


	6. Long Skirt, Nice Jacket

**Rating: **K  
**Pairing:** Absolutely Futile Razer/Seem. Not kidding.  
**Warnings:** Anti-pairing-pairing, unbeta'd.  
**Word Count:** 1,808  
**For:** Anti-Pairing Challenge on jakfanfics

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**Long Skirt, Nice Jacket **

Razer was bored. Very bored.

The race wasn't for another hour and a half, and he had absolutely nothing to do until then. He had the best pit crew on the planet—so messing with his car was a no-go—and Jak was nowhere to be found—so harassing the boy and the rat was also out of the picture.

So he had decided to check the place out. Not the track itself, of course; that was both illegal and against Mizo's orders—the man could be so straitlaced sometimes, regardless of his position as Kras City's top crime boss—but rather, Razer found himself walking the halls of the temple the racing committee had carved that track from.

It had certainly been a long time since he was in a building made entirely of stone, much less stone that was still its natural color. This place was huge, all twisting halls and random windows that made him jerk when he turned a corner because he could swear, just for a second, that there was someone leaning out that glassless gap in stone to look out over the world far below.

Damnable ghosts. Razer had little doubt they existed, very few people did, but Kras was mercifully lacking in the things. He supposed it only made sense that a temple—particularly one that had probably been here since before the Precursors disappeared—would be rife with the specters.

He passed a window, sunlight streaming in through the gap, and paused just a moment before turning the next corner. It had also been a long time since he saw clear skies.

Not that he missed the clear blue, though. He rather liked the smog in Kras and Haven, where he could reach up and pull the sky down if he wanted to. Out here, in this sand pit that far too many people called home, there was absolutely no control.

He hated not having control.

The dark-haired racer turned another corner—who the hell had designed this place, anyway?—and came face-to-face with an impossibly pale figure, leaning out yet another window. This ghost didn't disappear, however, instead turning to stare at him with sharp scarlet eyes, white features drawing downward in what could only be aggravation.

"Hello," he said smoothly, giving a half-wave with one hand.

The ghost blinked—just once and very slowly—and then rolled its eyes and sighed, pushing back from the windowframe and turning in place to face him. "What are you doing here?" The voice was a high whisper, feminine and annoyed.

Not a ghost, after all. A little girl.

He walked closer to the youth, leaning on the wall just beside the window to look her up and down. She was young, too young for his tastes, and wore an off-white tunic with long, loose sleeves and slacks of similar simplicity. Over that she wore a dark green—or maybe grey, it was hard to tell in the varying sunlight—smock, cinched at the waist to spread out into a long skirt, slits on both sides reaching her narrow hips. He wondered if the pallor of her skin and hair—kept back in an odd tail where it hadn't been shaved—were natural.

She took a breath and spoke again, a little louder. "I asked you a question." Her voice had taken on a threatening edge that Razer had long ago learned to recognize in supposedly civil conversation. Pretty much everyone in Kras—and definitely everyone he worked with—spoke that way.

He raised an eyebrow and took a long drag on his ever-present cigarette. She recognized him as a threat, meaning that she was very aware of different behaviors. She might have been a bit young for his tastes, not to mention _female_, but certainly not a bad catch.

"I am just taking a look around, my dear girl," he said with a little bow, pulling the cigarette from his mouth and turning his head to exhale. "I have a race later, down below, but until then I am horribly unoccupied."

"How sad," she said flatly, turning to look out the window again.

Razer's brow furrowed, green eyes narrowing ever so slightly. "Now, there's no need to be rude," he took a step to the side, blocking the light from the window as he leaned down to meet the girl's eyes. "Surely you are just as bored as I; why else would you be wandering these halls all alone?"

She blinked again. "I have other reasons for being in this place than you," her red eyes narrowed marginally, "Razer, is it?"

Both dark eyebrows arched. "Oh, so you have heard of me."

"Yes." She tilted her head downward slightly, glaring up in a manner that would have been intimidating to anyone but Razer. "_You_ are one of the racers responsible for the lower levels of my temple being gutted like a Lurker Shark on a fisherman's table. _You_ are the reason my monks have been forced to vacate our learning halls down below, move all our artifacts and scrolls into our own chambers to avoid seeing them destroyed." She straightened, folding her hands behind her back. "Yes, I have heard of you."

Razer stared. "I had nothing to do with any of the construction, darling," he assured her, a hint of concern edging into his tone. "I am merely another racer, just like any of the others. Would you be this presumptuous if you had run into, say, Shiv? Or Edje?" He paused for a moment. "Or Jak?"

"Jak knows not to wander in my temple unattended," shre replied, as though she had been the one to teach the youth such a lesson. "The other characters you mentioned were present during the blasting in the lower levels. Shiv used a steel mallet to knock down a wall older than your entire city. Edje helped rig the ignition wires. They are no less guilty of sacrilege than you."

He squinted—he knew what Edje and Shiv had been up to, but wasn't aware anyone else did. Those two were always up for some extra money, and he couldn't really blame them. They were good racers, but didn't have the same reputation he did, or UR-86, or even Jak.

The thought of the young wildcard made Razer think. This little girl spoke as though she knew the boy. Razer wondered what kind of connection there was between the cocky teenager and this strange young girl.

"You are a monk, I take it?"

She nodded.

"And how would a monk know Jak?"

"If you Kras folk had any idea what was happening in this world beyond your own pointless speed competitions you would know the answer to that question."

A moment passed in silence. Two. By the start of the third Razer thought his face would crack. He took a drag on his cigarette.

"I just realized that this conversation is horribly one-sided," he said at last. The man held a hand to his chest. "You know that I am Razer, but I never learned your name…" He gestured with the same hand toward the strange female monk.

She stared for a second more. "Seem."

"Seem! Why that's a lovely—" his brow furrowed, all the melodrama fading from his tone. "—name." He straightened, squinting down at the little girl again. Just as she had done her research, he had done his. He knew who lived here—that they couldn't be bribed—what they did, and the name of their leader. "Isn't the head of the order named Seem?" he asked, forcing lightness to his voice.

"Yes."

Great conversation, this one. "Are you the leader of the monks?"

He should have expected her reply, but it still hit him like a punch in the gut. Well, a very _light_ punch in the gut. Barely enough to make him dizzy. "Yes."

Razer couldn't help what sprung from his mouth next. "But you're…twelve."

The girl's features shifted suddenly to an expression that danced on the border between annoyed and confused. He had guessed wrong, then.

"Fourteen?"

Her fine white eyebrows jutted downward a little further.

"Sixteen?"

When she ground her teeth and rolled her eyes he decided it was time to change his tact. Razer reached out and placed one long-fingered hand on her shoulder, smiling. "Well, however old you are, you look stunning!"

She glanced sideways at his hand, then back to his face, arching one eyebrow.

He moved as though it was his intention that made him remove his hand and not that _look_ the girl had given him. "I am thirty-one, by the way, although I have been told I look much younger." He grinned and chanced a wink. "It's the clothes—this jacket cost quite the pretty penny."

She rolled her eyes and Razer gave an exasperated sigh. "Come now, even Jak's little rat likes how I dress!" This girl was impossible—he had never spoken with someone this immune to his charms before.

Yet, what he said had apparently piqued the girl's interest. "Then you are acquainted with Orange Lightning?"

Razer arched one eyebrow. "Who?"

Seem blinked—twice this time in rapid succession. "Daxter."

"Oh! Yes, I know the rat. Funny little thing." He chuckled and shook his head, then looked at her again. "And how do _you_ know him?"

"I am well-acquainted with Jak," she replied. "It is impossible to know one well without also knowing the other. I am, however, surprised that Jak allowed you to come anywhere near his friend."

He opened his mouth to say something, give some scathing reply, but couldn't even force out a syllable before a loud horn rung out signaling the ten-minute prep time before the race. Green eyes darted to the window. How long had he been up here?

"If you will excuse me…" He bowed low and turned to go, making it three steps toward the corner before the monk spoke again.

"Razer."

He paused and looked back over his shoulder.

"Daxter is right," Seem said softly, voice still neutral, "that is a very nice jacket."

He blinked, laughed, and headed off.

"But you are still guilty of sacrilege, regardless of how appealing your clothing may be."

He waved as he left. "Say what you like, girl. _I_ am the one that wins races and changes lives while _you_ sit up here and read."

He didn't see the girl's smirk as he turned the corner, but couldn't have known why she gave it anyway. He would never hear of the time not too long ago that she had challenged his teenaged foe to a race herself, pitted him against her best handlers and leapers, and been forced to watch as he reached that final ring first.

But, she supposed, he would understand the feeling, if not the expression, soon enough.

**End**

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	7. Metallic Chill

**Rating: **M  
**Pairing:** Jak/Erol, Seem/Errol  
**Warnings:** Non-pairing-pairing, mention of torture and non-con, unbeta'd..  
**Word Count:** 1,430  
**For:** Anti-Pairing Challenge on jakfanfics  
**Notes:** Heart of Mar canon.

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**Metallic Chill**

Fingers brushed her face, hard and cold even through the fabric of his glove, and she fought against the flinch that seized her muscles at the contact.

"Do not touch me," she hissed, scarlet eyes narrowing.

A half-metal mouth curved in a horrid mockery of a smirk.

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_His hands were always cold, colder against his skin than any flesh ever should have been. The metallic chill seeped into his bones at the instant of contact, and he ground his teeth to keep from biting at the fingers cupping his chin._

_"Don't touch me," he growled, violet electricity crackling around him at the surge of emotion._

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Even his voice was wrong, the rattle of breath over steel that sent a shiver down her spine. "Oh, but you're such an interesting specimen," he jeered. "You remind me of someone, in fact."

She didn't need to ask who, the sudden taste of fear in the air was proof enough for her suspicions. She forced a smirk of her own, still glaring. "He will destroy you," she swore. "Unless, of course, you destroy yourself first."

His yellow eyes—matching shades but mismatched nonetheless—narrowed. His hand was suddenly gone from her skin, drawn back to the opposite shoulder for the instant it took in preparation to strike.

It hurt, when he swung his almost human arm and backhanded her. The shock was enough to make her recoil, the tang of blood sharp on her tongue as her teeth rattled. But she was no stranger to pain, and righted herself in the time it took to inhale a steadying breath. Her pale painted lips curved in a grin once more.

"You cannot break me, abomination."

He laughed. "Where have I heard that before?"

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_"You won't break me. Not now and not ever."_

_One fiery eyebrow arched as yellow eyes met narrowed blue, slits of clear sky amid cloudy, bruised skin. "And what," he inquired, voice a hiss and promise and threat all at once, "makes you say that?"_

_The other grinned, baring perfect white teeth. "You haven't yet, have you?"_

_He drew back one hand and lashed out at the boy, backhand swift and hard and enough to knock him down onto his creaky cot. "Maybe not yet," he replied, taking a step to loom over the fallen youth, "but I have plenty of time."_

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He stepped closer, every move a mechanical whir and boom of metal on stone, and reached out with his other hand, the one that was anything but human, to take hold of her neck. "I might not have as much time with you as I did with him, but I won't need that much."

Fine eyebrows jutted downward, crimson eyes narrowing in rage as one lip curled in disgust. "You ran out of time long ago, Errol," she whispered. "You are more than dead and less than alive. There is no soul in you, no time to fill that void with others' pain." White light flashed behind her eyes, silent reminder that this girl had been touched by her creators. "You are finished."

He lifted her up, tightening his grip on her neck. "This planet is finished. There will be nothing left when I am through!" He threw her to the ground, hard enough to send her cap askew and jar loose several of the cords running up and down her tunic.

A single lock of white hair fell into her face as she turned to glare up at the metal monster that had once been not unlike herself. Teeth bared, skin flushed under white face paint, she surged to her feet and tackled the abomination with all the force she could muster.

It was enough. Barely.

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_Hot breath ghosted over his skin, cold hands on his neck and one knee planted firmly on his chest. The cot creaked under their combined weight, metal threatening to break at any moment._

_"You are mine, boy. Don't try fooling yourself into thinking otherwise."_

_Cold skin pressed over his mouth and frozen hands danced over the collar of his tunic._

_The youth drew back and slammed his head into the older man's, the crack of bone on bone loud amid the silence of his cell._

_The man recoiled, rising to his feet, but not in time to avoid a hard kick to his midsection. The blow was rough but not debilitating, painful but not unbearable. Yellow eyes lifted to meet blue again and the youth grinned, that blue flashing to violet-tinted black._

_Another blow, this one a swift backhand to the jaw, and he was on the floor._

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Machinery hummed and buzzed as his metallic body struggled to keep upright in spite of the sudden weight and the hard blow to the only flesh he had left, but it wasn't enough. With a great crash he fell to the ground, girl on top of him scrambling to right herself before he could.

He reached out with his human-sized hand and grabbed hold of her as she hastened to flee, fingers working their way into fine white hair now that her cap had been completely pushed back. He pulled her back down to him, roughly enough to pull a few strands free from her pale half-shaven scalp, as he too rose to his feet.

"I knew there was a reason you remind me of him," he murmured, pulling her close enough to feel her breath on his skin, close enough for her to feel the cold air pushed out through his mouth at perfectly regular intervals. He took a deep breath, wishing suddenly that he could smell her. "I wonder if you taste the same."

Her skin, barely visible beneath her smeared face paint, flashed perfect white as she held both hands to his face and forced out all she had, blue-tinted light burning his skin and charring the metal beneath.

It was barely enough to loosen his grip, and she tore away in that single instant, dropping down for a heartbet to lift the coppery orb they had fought so roughly over from the ground where it had fallen. Clutching the artifact to her chest with one hand, she reached to her belt with the other and drew out a fine mechanical device, pressing down on the single red button and speaking hurriedly into the end tipped with foam and metal mesh.

"Jak, Errol is attacking the monk temple." She turned a corner, the steady stomping of the abomination's footsteps loud behind her. "He wants the secrets we have kept regarding the Dark Makers."

She raced past one of the libraries and three of her monks emerged; the look in their eyes as she darted past was the greatest of promises, the reminder that they had taken the same oath as she, given up their lives in exactly the same manner.

The stomping slowed, she felt a flash of light as she drove on, heard the unholy crack of bone and flesh on stone.

"Please, help us."

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_"I don't belong to anyone." Too-dark eyes narrowed to slits as emerald-gold hair bristled behind the scarlet band about his head. One foot came down on the older man's chest, just rough enough to send his heart racing. "And I'm not going to give you what you want."_

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The stomping returned with full force, far further back than before. Her monks' sacrifice had not been in vain.

She didn't hear if the hero replied, couldn't have heard it over the pounding of her heart in her head and blood screaming in her ears, but knew nonetheless that he had gotten the transmission.

Running up stairs and racing through the massive stone doors that opened just before her—sliding closed again when she passed—she reached the small metal ring at the entrance to the temple just as the sound of metal against stone exploded behind her.

Dust fogged the air as the monster forced his way through the moving walls, obscuring his vision and scrambling his sensors just long enough for her to key in a set of coordinates and leap through the ring, artifact still clutched tightly to her chest.

The air cleared, and he gave an angry roar when he found her no longer in his sight.

"Yes," he said softly, tone dripping with rage, "I think you two would taste _exactly_ the same."

**End**

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	8. Safe

**Rating: **K**  
Pairing:** Degrading Jak/Keira  
**Warnings:** Degrading relationship, completely pointless, unbeta'd.  
**Word Count:** 230  
**For:** NO REASON AT ALL! Aren't those the best?

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**Safe **

"Almost like old times," Keira says one evening as the sun dips behind the city walls, casting strange lights and colors on dirty Port waters. "Remember how we used to walk on Sentinel Beach after the Lurkers left? We'd hold hands…"

Pale fingers brush dark knuckles, eyes never meeting, and he shies away.

"Almost like old times," Jak echoes in a whisper, holding the hand she touched in his other, running long fingers over his burning knuckles.

His eyes are averted again, hidden behind shadows and red fabric and walls of determination that no one can bring down, and Keira heaves a sigh. "You have to get used to it sometime," she says, stopping her walk.

"Used to what?" he asks. His eyes are back on her now, narrowed slightly.

"Not everyone that touches you is going to hurt you."

"I know that."

"Then why won't you let me hold your hand?"

He turns away again, hands dropping to his sides, and she steps forward. A hand touches his shoulder and he spins, reflexively, and smacks it away. Keira's eyes are wide with shock and his are dark with pain.

"It's not safe," he says.

"Not—" She breaks off and her eyes fill with tears. "Jak!" she hisses. "You are so screwed up!"

She's gone, footsteps barely in his hearing, when he finally replies.

"That's why it's not safe."

**End**

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	9. Flux

**Rating: **T  
**Pairing:** Light Jak/Dax  
**Warnings:** Mild language, unbeta'd.  
**Word Count:** 2,013  
**For:** Weiila-sempai's birthday.

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Flux  
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For the first several days after he broke out, the changes in his physical state fluctuated. While he searched for that one dead-end alley, the place he could find help and hope for a chance to pay back the people that did this to him, his inner universe was coming apart at the seams.

That first night after the breakout they had stayed in a little house in the slums that apparently belonged to a friend of Daxter's, a girl that had owed him a favor for a good several months. The ottsel collected, and the girl slept in her coffee shop for a few days.

Jak hadn't meant to fall asleep that night, much less on the floor, carpeted though it was. With Daxter curled up beside him, though, finally back and warm and so very _real_, he couldn't help it. He had half thought he would wake up back in Sandover, that the last two years had been some horrid nightmare that only Daxter could wake him from.

But then, he had thought that many a time in those dark and painful hours between treatments, when whispers in his head were too loud to ignore but still too quiet to understand, when yellow eyes burned into his memory just as clear as dark blue ever had. In the moments when orange and yellow and red weren't the colors of a friend, of the one person closest to his heart than any other, but of the man that wrenched Jak's arms away from his face when he attempted to use them to block a blow and kicked him when he fell.

The first morning, when he realized yet again that it wasn't all a dream, he was surprised that he hadn't woken up screaming. He was glad for that fact, so glad that Daxter didn't have to see him like that, and felt a rush of relief when he realized he hadn't even woken the little youth with his movements.

He had learned speech in prison, but he had also learned silence. It served him well as he pushed himself up off the carpet and made his way across the room to take his first proper shower in far too long.

Not forty seconds later, Daxter was roused by the sound of shattering glass in the bathroom and—realizing that his best friend was no longer curled beside him, too-thin body bent to wrap around the small furry form of an ottsel—sprang to his feet and scrambled across the room on all-fours.

He reached the bathroom, and found Jak with his right hand buried wrist-deep in the wall behind the mirror, broken glass spread all around him like spoils of war. The young man's teeth were clenched tightly, and even from this distance Daxter could see that they were longer and sharper than they should have been.

Jak pulled his hand back, clenching and unclenching his fist, not seeming to care as blood welled up around his knuckles and fingers.

"Go away, Dax," he hissed. His voice was still too new, too unfamiliar for Daxter to say if it sounded normal. A little breathy, maybe, pain and shame evident in its tone.

"Jak, what—"

He spun, and Daxter saw that one of Jak's eyes was solid black, a patch of ashen white spread out over the left side of his face, streaking grey and white through his too-long hair. "Go _away_!"

That first morning, he did. Jak was left to sit on the floor, knees up to his chest, and wait for the muddled half-transformation to fade before he dared to leave the room. When both eyes were blue and his hair emerald-gold, skin still pale from poor health but not from the dark within him, he showered, dressed, and stepped out to meet with Daxter again.

They spent several hours walking the slums, trying to find the alley the old man had told them about. Jak's endurance wasn't what it used to be, though, and they ended up retreating to their borrowed home when the sun was still high.

Jak flopped down on the bed and slept until morning. Daxter tried to stay awake, to keep watch or make sure Jak didn't get up without him again, but sitting next to Jak—after so long without his comforting warmth, without the steady sound of his breathing to keep the nightmares at bay—was too much, and he fell asleep soon after.

The second morning Daxter woke to find Jak already in the shower, waited for him to come out. He was surprised to find that, when he did emerge, his best friend's fingers were tipped with claws, sharp as knives and black as a clouded night. Jak sat down on the bed and concentrated on the keratin daggers at the ends of his fingers.

"Are you okay?" the ottsel asked.

"Fine," Jak replied. The claws shrank and dulled, lightening to fingernails within a couple seconds, and Jak wished he could smile at the meager control he was gaining. It still wasn't enough, would never be enough.

He looked at Daxter, and for a moment he was certain they both felt the fear lurking deep in his chest, the silent promise that the madness within him would not see the boy-turned-animal as a friend forever. Someday, unless Jak could gain complete control over this transformation, this curse the Baron had cast, he would kill Daxter.

There was no avoiding it.

The second day they were out a little longer, this time making a stop at the coffee shop Daxter's friend ran to get some food and drink. Daxter asserted that Jak needed all the food he could get, but the young hero—or former hero, rather, there was little valor in him now—knew better. He couldn't stomach much more than Daxter's share of food right now. It had just been too long.

The third morning after the breakout, Daxter woke first. He rose tiredly to his feet and looked his friend up and down, searching for some hint of the monster hiding under his skin, some shadow of the darkness Praxis had programmed into his body.

There.

Daxter heaved a sigh and, gently, woke the elder youth. Holding his hand, he dragged him to the shower and helped him wash his hair, letting Jak return the favor by scrubbing at his fur. The water was hot and cleaning and wonderful, and by the time they were clean they both felt completely awake.

Jak looked better than he had since Sandover. Even with black horns parting the emerald-gold hair on the top of his head, curving back and tapering to points that would have been too easy to run someone through on.

The mirror was broken, so Jak couldn't see. Nevertheless, he avoided touching his head—even to towel-dry his hair—for a long while after their shared shower had finished.

"Dax?" The youth held his mug with the palms of his hands, rotating it back and forth slowly on the table.

"Hm?" the younger of the two replied, swallowing thickly.

"Why are you still here?"

Daxter blinked. "What the hell kind of question is that? Did you think I was gonna bust my ass gettin' you outta that hellhole just to leave?"

Jak kept his eyes averted, didn't take a drink even though Daxter was sure he should have. He should have done something to cover the silence that reigned after the ottsel's words, should have made some motion of compensation.

Then, slowly, one hand lifted from the sides of the mug, running up through green hair to brush long fingers over ebony horns, trace the contour and touch the point. Jak didn't say anything, but he didn't have to. Daxter had spent years communicating with the elder youth when he couldn't talk; reading his expression now was no different than it had been then. No harder and no more frightening. Horns and claws and black eyes couldn't change the fact that he was still Jak.

"You're bein' stupid," Daxter said, clambering up onto the table and crossing it, standing to stare down at this shadow that remained of his best friend. He reached out and, without warning, grabbed hold of one of Jak's horns, tugging on the blackened shaft of bone. "Do you think this matters? At all? Do you think _any_ of it matters to me?"

"You don't understand," Jak interjected, wrenching free and meeting Daxter's eyes. "I…what they did…I _killed_ people, Dax! I tore them apart with my bare hands, and I did it because I _could_ do it. Because it was easy, because it was…" He shuddered, grinding his teeth and averting his gaze again. "…it was fun. I had fun doing it."

"And how does this matter to me?"

"Someday it _will_ be you!" Jak hollered back, rising from his seat and slamming both hands down on the table. "You don't get it, Dax! I'm going to _kill you_ someday, and there's nothing I can do to change it!"

Daxter took a breath and spoke certainly, a declaration of the truth he knew. "You won't kill me, Jak. You've never hurt me, at least not on purpose."

The young man made an exasperated noise in the back of his throat, lifting both hands to his head. "It doesn't matter what I _have_ done, it's what I _can_ do," he explained, sounding almost frantic. "They did things to me, Dax. I almost tore you apart two days ago just because you were there! There won't be a reason to stop if I lose control like that again, if I forget who you are."

He grinned. "Yeah there will," the ottsel smiled. "There'll always be a reason that you won't hurt me."

Jak stared, uncomprehending, and Daxter forced a laugh.

"I'm Daxter," he said, "you're Jak. There's no Daxter without Jak and no Jak without Daxter. We're two of a kind, both screwed over by glowy purple nasty and both still tryin' to learn how to deal with it. It's pretty simple."

"Dax—"

He held up one finger and shook his head. "Look, I don't care how hard you try, you're not gettin' rid of me no matter how many horns you sprout or how long your claws get. You're Jak, you've always been Jak, you'll always be Jak. That thing you turn into—which only scared the shit outta me that first time, by the way—is just a different part of you. Like…Dark Jak or somethin'. I'm not scared, 'cause it's still you." He smiled. "And you won't hurt me. You love me, remember?"

Jak stared for a long moment, then forced a shaky nod. "Yeah. I do."

Daxter's smile brightened a little. "And there's no way I'm gonna let someone I love as much as you get swallowed by their own crazy, so you don't have to worry about that."

"But, Dax—"

"Look. After I got turned into an ottsel you carried me, right? Started lugging me around on your shoulder not because I asked for it, but because I needed it." He paused, giving a very slight nod. "Well, now it's my turn. You're a bit too big for me to put on my shoulder, but I'm not lettin' you carry the nasty things they did to you on your own. If you're gonna pay 'em back for hurtin' ya then I'm gonna pay 'em for takin' you away from me."

A moment passed.

"I…I don't want you to—"

"Tough break, you don't get a choice."

Jak almost smiled. The corners of his mouth twitched a little, and Daxter's smile remained firmly in place. The elder nodded and held out his arm. "Come on, we've got to find that Torn guy."

Daxter scampered up the offered arm, settling onto the shoulderplate and gently pressing his cheek to Jak's, smiling brightly. Jak actually pressed back a little. "That's right!" the ottsel said. "We've got some serious noble ass to kick. Nobody hurts my best friend and gets away with it."

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	10. Personal Demons

**Rating: **T  
**Pairing:** None  
**Warnings:** None, really, unless you count mention of Dark Jak's exploits something worth warning about.  
**Word Count:** 1024  
**For:** Prompt #2, "Metaphor" on the 64damnprompts LJ community.

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**Personal Demons**

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"No, no, people don't _actually_ have demons that belong to them, it's a…a figure of speech."

Blue eyes, large and bright and innocent, blinked once, then one green eyebrow arched in confusion and a suntanned hand came up to scratch at emerald-gold hair.

The aging man gave a weak chuckle, black eyes narrowing slightly in thought, searching for some way to explain it. How could one illustrate the meaning of "figure of speech" to a boy who couldn't speak? How could one explain "metaphor" to a nine-year-old?

"You see, it's like this." A green hand lifted, gesturing idly as the Sage spoke. "When people talk about their personal demons, they mean the problems that they have to deal with, the difficulties that they're faced with, the challenges that they don't want to face, but that only they can because a lot of the time they are the only ones that can see them."

Again the boy blinked.

"Does that make any sense?"

He bit his bottom lip, squinting slightly, then gave a quiet giggle—one of the few vocalizations he ever made—and shook his head, brow creased in silent apology for being so slow to understand.

The Sage sighed and put a hand on the boy's head, patting lightly. "Someday you will understand, Jak." The faint, amused smile faded from the man's aged features and he lowered his eyes as though in his own silent apology. "I'm positive you will, maybe better than anyone…"

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"Jak, _slow down_! Those goons called off the chase already!"

The youth took a gulp of air and turned his Zoomer to barrel around a corner, mowing down two people before his shaking hand twitched to flip the switch to change hover zones. He sped up and shot off over the crowds, vision blurring randomly as he turned another corner, one step closer to the safety of the hideout.

"Just because the alarm's off doesn't mean the search is over, Dax," he reminded in a rasp, voice ragged. "I really don't think they'd give up on hunting me down just because I'm a little faster than they are."

"'Specially not after somethin' like that, huh?" Daxter replied quietly, shifting the weight of his companion's Morph Gun slightly to keep from dropping it as they careened down a straightaway, shifting down to the lower hover zone to keep from hitting an oncoming Cruiser.

The red transport was moving fast, probably called by the other guards a half-sector back as backup. The same guards that had apparently given up on chasing the young renegade currently moving through the Slums at dangerous speeds, completely uncaring of who or what he ran over or into as he sped on—so long as it wasn't red, it could be hit without garnering too much attention.

_There was nothing he could do, no choice but to just let it go and hope that he wasn't carried too far, hope that people were frightened enough to run when he ground out—_

A moment more passed before the teen and his orange-furred best friend, only friend at times like this, made it to the dead-end alley braced against the city wall, and no time was wasted ducking behind the metallic wall that lifted up to reveal a makeshift doorway. The thick seal moved down again, mechanisms whirring and buzzing as they blocked this secret place from prying eyes shielded by scarlet glass.

Jak collapsed just inside, leaning against the wall and sliding down to sit on the stairs, breath heaving. The scent of blood was thick all around him; his hands were starting to feel stiff where the scarlet fluid clung to his gloves and fingers. He swallowed thickly, blue eyes drifting shut while he gasped for breath, struggling to slow the hurried beating of his heart, and failing miserably.

_—a roar, an inhuman growl as the color drained out from all around him—_

A light tug on the eco ring strapped to his chest made his eyes snap open again, angling downward on the small orange figure that had, at some point in the last several seconds, relocated from his shoulder to his lap.

"C'mon, buddy, you need a shower."

He shook his head. "Let me catch my breath first," he exhaled, wanting terribly to run a hand over his face but at the same time wanting to keep that metallic smell rooted to his hands as far away from as possible.

_—replaced by whites so dead and blacks so dark they shouldn't have even been real—_

Another tug. "Jak, you _need_ a shower. You gotta wash off the bits of your personal demons still stuck to your skin."

Here the youth gave a grin, more a baring of white teeth, a curling back of barely-chapped lips in display, and forced out a single chuckle. The sound was so alien, so different from the quiet laughter of his younger days, the giggles that had bubbled up from who-knew-where to join his occasional cry and whoop as the only sounds he ever made.

_—but that were real, painfully real, a rush of electric violet jolting through stretched bones and twisted muscle in reminder—_

"Nah, Dax, that's just a figure of speech. Personal demons are problems that only you can see."

_—that nothing would ever be right and that maybe it was better this way, maybe it was easier this way—_

He shook his head lightly, closing his eyes again. "My demons are pretty public these days. At least the big one."

_—that this way he could scare them as much as they had hurt him, this way he could kill without feeling it—_

He heaved a sigh and grunted as he rose to his feet again, still shaking a little. "But yeah, I guess a shower would be nice."

_—that this way everyone else would be able to believe he was still clean, he was still himself, even though there was really nothing left._

He nodded again, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly as Daxter jumped back up to perch on his shoulderplate. "It sure would be nice to get clean again."

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	11. In Review

**Rating: **K+  
**Pairing:** Post-breakup Jak/Keira  
**Warnings:** Unbeta'd.  
**Word Count:** 1,791  
**For:** Inspiration provided by Blu.

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In Review  
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The door creaked open, and his head lifted from the papers on the table, green eyebrows arching at the sapphire-haired young woman on the threshold.

"Can…can I come in?" Her voice was quiet, weak. He loved it and hated it in equal measure. It had been a while, but he still remembered all too well the sting lurking under that voice, what it had done to his heart and his head in a few short words. Her voice hurt more than any of the experiments ever had.

He nodded anyway, gesturing to the empty chair across the table, and then went back to the papers he had been given to review before they were passed off to the Council. It was strange, reading about what they had done to him. Jarring, disturbing, and eerily distant. This young man in the photos and described in the reports was so different from who he was now, so much more alive, that is wasn't difficult to look at it as though it were an entirely different person he was reading about.

This boy, with his innocent eyes and silent screams, was Dark Warrior Subject Four.

The young man reading about him was Jak.

Once upon a time, they had been the same person. Now they couldn't be more different.

Keira took a seat, laying one hand over the other on the table, and looked on in silence for a long moment. Jak had never told her that he liked the sound of her heartbeat, so steady and normal in comparison to the deathly slow rhythm in his own chest, or that the way she smelled still reminded him of Sandover.

He had also never told her that he could smell Erol on her when they reunited, that his scent was rank in her hair and his aura still lingered on her skin, the faintest hints of dark eco the elder man had only barely been imbued with singing for the dark energies in the younger warrior's own blood.

But that was a long time ago, and now she didn't smell like him anymore. Now she was Keira, reeking of oil and metal and stone and water, and it was enough to make him want to scream. How could she have been here for two years and remained exactly the same as they day they parted? How could she possibly be so clean in this city of filth and war?

"Can I help you with anything?" she asked at last. He lifted his head and she gestured toward the papers, a shadow darkening her eyes that he recognized too quickly.

He closed the folder in his hand and set it on top of the stack. "Nah," the young man replied, reaching up to pull his goggles off for the first time in almost three days. "I should probably be heading off to bed anyway."

"When was the last time you slept?"

He leaned back, propping his feet up on the table—over the papers and folders with intention to keep Keira from taking one should she prove too curious for anyone's good. "Couple days ago. Dax got a nasty bite off one of the Metalheads in the industrial section, and he's been using the bed."

The young woman pursed her lips slightly. "So…you can only sleep on a real bed now?" She sounded hopeful, and it hurt.

He shook his head slowly. "No, I'd rather sleep on the floor. But I'm too busy to sleep right now anyway."

"Even you need sleep, Jak."

The youth raised both eyebrows. "Are you sure about that?"

A long moment passed and she didn't reply. Jak sighed and raked a hand through his hair.

"…We should cut that," she said quietly, a change of subject Jak had halfway been expecting. "Your hair, I mean. It's getting pretty long."

"I guess it is." He kept his eyes averted. "You don't like it long, then?"

"You used to have it cut pretty short back home. In Sandover, I mean."

He heaved another sigh and moved his feet from the table, propping an elbow on the polished metal as he started up his reading where he had left off. "This isn't Sandover," he said evenly.

A moment passed as his blue eyes scrutinized the flowing text before him yet again, and he gave a low grunt of interest up reaching a particularly interesting passage. Now _that_ was interesting. He didn't know they had used such a large dose of green-treated dark eco to heal…him—that had been him, right?—that time he broke his leg about a year into his capture. It certainly explained why his bones seemed unbreakable now, though.

"Jak, please don't do this."

He stopped, lifted his eyes but didn't tilt his head back. "Do what?"

"Don't shut me out," Keira replied, leaning forward slightly. "I wanted to talk to you before the Council meeting tomorrow, maybe hear some of the things you're going to tell them about…your condition."

The youth tossed the folder down, papers sliding out over the dark-tinted metal, and his chair screeched as he pushed it backward to rise. "My condition. _Right_." He turned and made his way into the kitchen, drawing a glass of blessedly clean water from the tap. She rose and followed after him, catching up just as he set the glass back on the counter.

"Jak, please…"

"If you want to know something, you should just ask," he replied, a tint of bitterness leaking into his tone. "It's not like I'm mute, not anymore." He turned to face her, fingers still curved around the cold glass tumbler, and cocked his head slightly to one side. "Well? What do you want to know?"

"I-I don't…not really…" She bit her bottom lip and lowered her eyes. "Jak, Daddy says that if the Council gets the information in those files on your table, if they find out the details of what happened to you, there's no way you'll be allowed to stay here."

He stared. She was talking about banishment. He had been relying on Ashelin and Torn to keep his image up for the council, keep him on good relations with the nobles of the city to which he had once been heir, but he had always known that even they couldn't keep it up forever. There were too many rumors, too many firsthand accounts to keep them all under wraps. He knew there had always been whisperings in the Council about the Dark Warrior Program, but he had no way of knowing just how loud those whispers could possibly be.

Too loud, apparently. He wondered how many details they had regarding the Baron's pet project, and how many of those factored into their opinion of him.

"I just thought that maybe, if you'd let me help you figure out what to say, then you might be able to explain that you're not as dangerous as they think."

Jak blinked, just once and very slowly, and then let out a short bark of mock-laughter. A scoff, a jeer, a complete lack of belief that those words had come out of Keira's mouth.

"I'm not dangerous?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.

She hesitated. "Not…as much as they think."

He folded his arms. "And how dangerous do they think I am?"

The girl fidgeted a little. "Daddy says they have reports of you taking out three KG platoons on your own." She turned her head sideways, focusing on a patch of reddish discoloration on the wall. The shade was distinctive, and she quickly turned away. "And…uh…that you killed twenty-four civilians in one day while eluding capture."

"Is that my top record?" he murmured.

"Jak, that's not funny."

"I'm not trying to be funny," he replied. "Why would I try to be funny over something like this?" The girl didn't reply, and Jak reached up to rub at his eyes. "Look, do any of them claim I'm a…a rapist or a kidnapper or anything like that?"

She met his eyes. "They're calling you a murderer, Jak, but they're scared to give you any lesser punishments because they know you can make it out of prison without much trouble." Her voice dropped to a whisper and she shook her head slowly. "They just keep saying nobody seems to know what to do with the eco freak."

He flinched, and at the same instant she reached up to cover her mouth.

"Oh god…Jak, I'm sorry! It just…slipped…I didn't—"

"They're right," he interjected, voice a gravelly hiss, hands clenched into fists, eyes narrowed into slits of blue-tinted black. "I'm a murderer, and a monster, and everything you've heard from Samos is the truth. I've killed as many people as I've saved."

"That wasn't you!" she asserted, moving forward slightly. "That was…was…"

He took a steadying breath. "Dark Jak?" he suggested. She nodded slowly. "Keira, there is no Dark."

"I've seen him, Jak."

He pushed past her back into the main room, picking up a folder toward the middle of the pile and sifting through the papers. "Don't believe me? Fine. I'll prove it." He drew out one bunch of stapled sheets and read aloud. "_The subject, though disoriented after high doses of blue-dark, retains a high level of self-awareness and personality, behaving more as a—_"

"That's not what this is about," she said, placing her hand over his on the pages. He pulled away instinctively.

"Jak, they are going to banish you if they don't have proof that you aren't what they think you are."

"Keira, I _am_ what they think I am."

"They're going to kill you."

"They're going to try."

Her eyes narrowed. "What, you'll kill them first?"

"If I have to, that's exactly what I'll do." He glared, lifting his hands slightly, palms upward. "I'll do what I have to do."

"You'll prove them right."

"They _are_ right."

She straightened her stance, tucking her hair back behind her ear. "You're not the same person I used to know." Her voice was even, determined.

"No," he said, "I'm not. I thought you knew that already."

"I'm afraid of you, Jak."

"So am I." He chuckled a little. "At least _you_ can run away."

"Why don't _you_?" She prodded. "Just tell the Council what they want to hear and Daddy and Ashelin will clear up the rest."

"Because saying that a monster is human doesn't change the fact that it's a monster."

"You're not a monster."

"Then why do you keep running away from me?"

Thoughts were gone, just word after word, falling in a twisted symphony of assertion and denial. The papers on the table, the Dark Warrior Program in review, knew who was right—and that the other should have started running by now.

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	12. Staring

**Rating: **T  
**Pairing: **None  
**Warnings:** Talk of blood and other unpleasantries, unbeta'd.  
**Word Count:** 584  
**For: **No particular reason.

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Staring  
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It never really seemed to stop. He thought it would stop after Kor's defeat, after the Underground stopped being a bunch of criminals and the city fell to better hands. It didn't.

There were still too many women who remembered that their husbands had been killed by this monster in teenager's skin, their scarlet armor had been shattered by those calloused hands, their skin ripped by ebony claws and fangs as white as snow. Too many children remembered their fathers and mothers screaming to get inside, get inside now, when he came careening past on a stolen Zoomer, guards and guns and death hot on his trail. Too many men that still remembered the terror when he looked at them and blue eyes went black, when the gruffness of a human voice was overshadowed by a gravelly, monstrous laugh that was the last thing many men ever heard.

He should have been a hero, a savior to this world now just as he had been hundreds of years in the past, but instead there was still nothing but fear. How many, he wondered, actually knew what had happened in the Nest? How much had Ashelin and Samos and Torn told the people regarding his final battle? Not enough.

It would never be enough.

He thought that it would stop after he was banished, that this new city would provide a clean slate, a place to start over away from the wide eyes and whispered voices of Haven. It didn't.

Too many had seen his first proper fight in the Arena, too many would see ash-white hands tear away thick metal masks and crush them, see dark claws leave gashes in armor and skin alike, staining black and white both bright red every time they closed their eyes to sleep. Too many people knew that even Damas called him dangerous, and that there had never been a man to hold such a description in the King's presence.

He couldn't start over, not now and not ever. There would constantly be that part of him, that part of his own heart that hated and hated and wanted to hurt others to make his hurt go away. There was no way to erase the years of torture that went into making him this person, this _thing_, and no way to ever start anew so long as he remained who he was.

Nothing ever seemed to change.

When he found himself back in Haven, it was worse than ever. Worse because the Council told everyone he was dead, worse because he shone with as much light as he overshadowed with darkness, and that was something that simply _wasn't right_ to the people of this city. Worse because, in this time of war, he found himself fighting alongside the very men he had once helped to fight, the very men whose brothers and fathers and cousins and best friends had been torn to pieces with the same claws he now used to save them.

There are words now, sometimes. Rare, and never from anywhere but behind a mask of blue and metal, but they are there. He knows there will come a time when words escalate to blows, and blows to capture, and capture to blood all over again, and this league that stands for freedom will lock him up somewhere dark and silent where they will never have to see him again, where they can make sure that they will never have to be afraid when he walks down the street.

At least, he thinks, when that happens, there will be no one around to stare.

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	13. Better Weeks

**Rating: **K+  
**Pairing: **None  
**Warnings:** Spoilers for the Precursor Trilogy, unbeta'd.  
**Word Count:** 584  
**For: **The sake of speculation.

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Better Weeks  
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"So we're up against the world's nastiest crime boss, with the best mercenary racers money can buy." He turned his back to the young woman that had, technically, gotten them all into this mess, and hesitated, the familiar seizing sensation in his chest reminding him of the half-truth of his next words. "And we've been poisoned."

Or at least his friends had been poisoned.

How could Jak possibly tell his friends, his _family_, that the Light Eco in his system had completely purged the toxin from his body the moment it contacted his tongue? How could he explain that even if they didn't win, even if they failed in this life or death gamble Krew had forced them into, _he_ would survive?

He couldn't stand the thought of having to watch his friends die, of watching as they fell prey to his former employer's potion one after the other. Ashelin and Keira and Torn…and Daxter. Daxter might not last the season, he was so much smaller than everyone else and so much more vulnerable because of it. Just the thought of his best friend, of the person that had _always_ been there dying in his arms, drifting off to sleep forever, was too much for him to bear.

Jak could tell himself over and over that he couldn't be certain that he was clean, that there was a chance that he was in just as much danger as everyone else, and it wouldn't change the familiar tingling sensation that had flared in his chest when he took that drink. That happened a lot when he was drinking something that had the ability to intoxicate a normal person—a quick, reflexive purification of the baser elements of the liquor. It assured the fact that Jak would never get drunk.

He hadn't thought on it much until later, but when they had all split up to think things over and make a thousand decisions, to deal with the hands they had been dealt, Jak realized that the flare had been stronger than he was accustomed.

The young man didn't dare allow any tests to be run, unlike the others who had asserted that they wanted blood and function tests run weekly to keep track of the progression of the poison. He told them it was because the needles and the observation of men in white coats was too much like it had been in prison, and it was almost the truth. The last thing he wanted was to relapse into a psychotic episode because the sensation of needles under his skin was too familiar.

But the real reason? If they ran tests on Jak they would find that he was clean, free of the poison that plagued the rest of his team. And then there would be questions from the doctors and a sense of betrayal from his friends, and he couldn't stand the thought of either. So he avoided the tests and never brought up the subject of his powers, of what they might have entailed for his condition.

He didn't want Rayn to know about those anyway, so the situation worked for the better in some ways. Others, though…

Jak felt Damas dying in his arms, the helplessness and anger over not being to save one of the few people he had wanted most to keep safe, and his chest ached at the thought that he might have to feel that again.

He lowered his eyes and heaved a sigh. "I've had better weeks."

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	14. Absolute Zero

**Rating: **K+  
**Pairing: **None  
**Warnings:** Character death, spoilers for the Precursor Trilogy, unbeta'd.  
**Word Count:** 643  
**For: **Inspired by the illustration titled "Don't Leave Me" by Nehta on devART .

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Absolute Zero  
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Jak had often mused on the tales that documented Mar's—his—death, wondered why none of them seemed to explain how or where or even when he died. He was there one story, and the next he wasn't. His cannon, which he now knew to be designed by Tess and built by the new Sages, was left to collect dust just outside the Nest. The Precursor Stone, which he now knew to be a transmitter and a generator rather than the egg Kor assumed it to be, was sealed away in his tomb.

And he, Mar, was dead.

But he wasn't. It was over, the Hora Quan pushed back to their hive and sealed away, at least for now, the shield walls of the original Haven fully operational, the people were safe. The planet was safe, at least for now. And Jak was still alive. More than alive—Jak was still full of Light, all wings and glowing skin and clusters of soothing energy, light refracting through raindrops to cast miniscule rainbows for the slightest slivers of a heartbeat as they fell all around him.

If he had survived the final assault, what was it that had kept Mar from using the cannon?

"Come on, don't leave me, deep breath…" The voice was a ragged sob, a hiss and a choke from deep in his throat that he couldn't even pretend was strong. Water dripped down his face, plastered glowing-blue hair to his head, tapped against the coppery metal of his armor.

Jak had suffered through many kinds of death already—Praxis and Kor and Erol saw to that—and as he sat there, crouched down in the rain, wings curled slightly inward and Light pushing out through his fingers to siphon through the fragile orange figure in his arms, he understood what the legends had meant when they said Mar had died before he could completely eradicate the Hora Quan.

"C'mon Dax, please…"

One dark blue eye opened ever so slightly, a slit of sapphire amidst a mask of orange and yellow and blood and pain, and his partner's mouth struggled to form a grin. "M'okay, Jak," he coughed. "Jussabit…sleepy."

Jak shook him lightly. "Don't fall asleep, Dax, please just hold on a little longer. Please…" He clenched his eyes shut and pushed against the light whirling within him, struggled to turn the healing energy that had saved him so many times outward on his friend.

Daxter shifted slightly in his hold, small hand coming up to grip two of Jak's fingers and give a reassuring squeeze. "S'okay, Jak…m'all right…"

Gunfire reached the hero's ears even through the steady pounding of the rain, high-pitched reminder that while Kor had been pushed back, there were still the lesser creatures to be dealt with. Soldiers, warriors trained under the Red Sage, garbed in crimson and metal, raced back and forth all around the two rain-soaked, blood-soaked, young men.

"They…n-need ya…Jak." The little Precursor stifled a cough. "Go help."

"I'm not leaving you," he replied hoarsely. The vibration of footsteps raced past just behind him, but he didn't move.

"Nah," Daxter choked, grinning again but not the way he should have, the way he always had, "g-guess…not. Tha's still…my job…'parrently." A moment passed, his breath turning to a ragged wheeze. "D-Dammit, an' I wanted t'see yer kids, too..."

The rain was cold, but not as cold as the orange fur that brushed Jak's face as he bowed over his best friend, not as cold as the scarlet fluid that clung to his hands even through the downpour, not as cold as the last whisper of breath through his dripping hair as the figure in his arms went limp, suddenly nothing more than a weight in his hands.

There were degrees of cold and degrees of death, and Jak had just hit absolute zero for both.

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End file.
